DALHOUSIE-McLEOD GANJ. October 22nd-23rd

Leaving Dalhousie for Dharamsala. We leave about 9 0'clock, driving east along back roads, and through some spectacular scenery. Along the way a metallic squeak comes in above the hum of the engine, which I thought was in the rear, but Ravinder correctly guesses is nearside front. He takes the wheel off ("for the first time ever"), and it turns out that the noise is caused because one of the holding clips for the brake pads has moved in too close to the brake disk, and is easily prised out again. I don't know how often he has changed a wheel, because he tightens the wheel-holding nuts while the wheel is still jacked up, and then lowers the jack and snaps the hub cap back on. I ask isn't he going to final-tighten them, but he doesn't think it's necessary. Half a kilometre further on we can hear the wheel rattling and he stops again and tightens the nuts fully. It's such a delicious feeling when you're so, so, right.

The four of us had planned to go to Macleod Ganj, to drop off Shifan and me, and so Vicky and Malcolm could have a quick look around, before going to their destination. But Ravinder has other ideas, and eventually stops where the road goes off to Dharamsala, and says to me that Shifan and I can catch a bus from there. V and M diplomatically ask if we couldn't drive to there, but he says the road will be too crowded, they will be very late at their destination, etc. Judging from yesterday, and the day before when they arrived at Dalhousie, I'd say his day starts at 9 am and finishes at 3.30 pm.

Fortunately there is a bus just leaving from the road junction, going to Dharamsala, and we have a rapid 20 rupee ride, the driver yanking the steering from one lock to the other to negotiate a number of downhill hairpin bends. At the Dharamsala bus station, we want to look for a tuk-tuk, which LP says is the only way to get to McLeod Ganj, (which is where the Dalai Lama lives, and where all the accommodation is). Unfortunately Shifan doesn't have any Hindi, (apparently they speak a separate unique language in the Maldives), and while he wanders off in search of a tuk-tuk, I ask at a bus-ticket window, and a man there runs out and stops a bus just leaving, and we get a further (9 rupee) bus ride to Macleod, even more thrilling than the first, because the steep downhill road surface is very loose gravel, and on a couple of the hairpin bends we actually slide down sideways for a while on the far part of the bend.

The previous night in Dalhousie I'd made a list of half a dozen likely-sounding places to stay in McLeod, and was going to walk up to a nearby 'phone shop when Ganesh said why don't you use the 'phone here? This translated into him calling 3 or 4 of them, and allegedly not being able to get through, but, he has a friend..., and so I get booked into the 'Dream Lodge', which, on the card (which he pulls from a wad of identical cards) looks rather (too) impressive. At dinner later, Lev,(who has spent a bit of time at McLeod), is of the opinion that anything with the word 'Lodge' in it is going to be expensive, and says just walk up the hill from the main road, where there are plenty of places to stay. In the end we forget all this good advice, and go off with the first hotel tout at the bus stand who utters the magic words 'only 200 rupees'. The place is on the main road, and Shifan takes a windowless 200 rupee room at the back, while I have a 350 rupee front (windowed) room, which I later discover has one of the windows missing. After bathing, I wander along the main road, and as I am now bookless, I buy a secondhand copy of Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises', which I thought I'd read before, but hadn't, and to my surprise find it a good read. The last two books of his that I read were so nauseatingly sentimental in parts that I'd more or less given up on him.

An aside on batteries for digital cameras : in Europe I was paying about 6 euros a pop for top quality batteries, and I would have done this 7 or 8 times. In Delhi, I was only able to buy ordinary el cheapo batteries (50 rupees for two), which worked okay, but I was constantly having to replace them. Since soon after arriving in Dalhousie I haven't had any luck with the el cheapos, which I think may be related to the higher altitudes. Anyway, I thought the camera was bung, and tracked down a camera shop in McLeod, but the guy checked it and said it was just due to no-good batteries. So I ended up buying 4 top grade re-chargable batteries from him (700 rupees), plus a top of the range LED charger, (1300 rupees), so hopefully this is the end of my battery problems, and maybe I'll be able to start taking pictures again.

I bump into Shifan around dinner time, and after we've looked in a couple of rather riotous cafes, find one that seems relatively quiet. Among a number of cuisines that it offers is Chinese, and they do an excellent chicken and sweetcorn soup, although it did have garlic in it. Since then I've been going back for a couple of bowls ("no garlic!") every night, which is good for my tum, as I tend to eat the biggest meal of the day in the mid-afternoon.

I'd assumed that the traffic would stop, and all the roadside peddlers disappear, by 11' ish, but there seems to be a noisy party going on somewhere in the front of the hotel, which I get the full benefit of, due to my missing window, and after it has quietened down about 2 am, I am too overtired to sleep. Consequently I take off early, and follow Lev's advice to try the lanes up the hill a bit, looking for a couple that the LP sketch map indicates are at the ends of alleys, and come upon one of them, the Tibetan Ashoka Guest House. Somebody is moving out of their room into one the few rooms that has a balcony and a montane view, and I can have their old room if I come back at 12 o'clock. It is impressed upon me that that the room doesn't have a view, but all I need is a window (for breathing), and quiet (for sleeping). I check out of the Hotel El Grotto, have a leisurely breakfast at a nearby spacious cafe, (with a good view), and am installed and showered at the Ashoka (first hot shower in India), by 12.30 pm. I have to stress hot, for Anonymous' sake. And it does have a view, of a few score Tibetan dwellings on a far hillside, bedecked with flags.